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I recently (and by recently, I mean two weeks ago) started water fasting, and to displace the constant feelings of food cravings I started watching food-related videos, most notably: TLC's 600lb Life. It is extraordinarily trashy TV, but illuminating.
Before I describe the negative observations, here's the positive ones: A) All of the successful patients had a good attitude to begin with (they wanted to lose the weight, and were willing to commit) B) They followed the doctor's instructions (important.) C) They had friends and family who were supportive and were generally affable individuals to begin with (likeable!)
As a representative slice of the people who get really, really fat, they're about 5% of the population. The rest that follows is the generalizations of everyone else.
Now. For the hot takes:
THE OBESE ARE IGNORANT
Do you remember the much-maligned food pyramid from your health classes, the one that put way too many grain carbs at the bottom? At the very least, it puts vegetables on the second tier, and fast food at the very tippy top. And these people don't even know that. The very concept of CICO they stubbornly defy. They don't seem to know anything about basic nutrition that even a kid would know. And it's not like they're getting fat off good cuisine, either. (A fat gourmand with a diverse palette would be, at the very least, a good friend to have to ask for recommendations.) They're just eating fast-food slop paid by their welfare checks. And speaking of...
THE OBESE ARE ENTITLED
There is a certain childlike narcissism that accompanies each and every one of these patients, that demands the world bend around them: that they should be fed, bathed, and cared after without giving anything back in return. They frequently manipulate their family members and spouses to look after them, hand and foot, even their children. They're rude and throw tantrums, and their ignorance only strengthens their stubbornness. (They even disagree with their own doctor, a man they're self-selected to seek out!) They continue their bad eating habits - even in the hospital itself! - and have food snuck in for them to eat. This inevitably leads to...
THE OBESE ARE STUPID
In wrestling, where the tiers are segmented by weight class, in order to hit the weight limits, athletes often go to extraordinarily lengths to temporarily lose 5-10 pounds before weigh-in to get as much of an advantage as they can. In the show, in order to qualify for bariatric surgery, patients need to lose a certain amount of weight so that it is safe for them to go into surgery. Now, admittedly, going to 1200 calorie diet when you're used to 10k+ is pretty hard, but even going to 5,000 - twice the amount of a healthy adult - would guarantee weight loss without significant dietary changes, other than portions.
Do they do this? Of course not.
In fact, I'm pretty sure they don't even weigh themselves beforehand. It's always a surprise and a shock when - surprise of surprises - that eating the same amount as you did before would maintain it. (In fact, some of them even gained weight.) The tantrums, the lies, the threats - all are laid bare before the uncaring measure of the livestock scale.
Of course they don't get the surgery. And they're always left wondering why, the poor buggers.
So, in conclusion, I have come into belief that you should judge people for being obese. Not to say that all fat people are ignorant, entitled, and stupid. But they definitely have at least one of these traits, and should be avoided at all costs.
To what extent do you think it's appropriate to judge someone else for their body type? Would you assess someone that was weak, small, or skinny as also lacking in character?
I think these days basic nutrition knowledge is pretty widespread. I mean it's not very good quality - someone that says "you need carbs for energy" is missing the mark but they at least have the concept of a macronutrient. I did meet a guy once who I had to explain what calories, protein and carbohydrates were to.
I think it's reasonable to infer that, all things being equal, an able-bodied person who's visibly fit or strong has more discipline than an able-bodied person who is neither of those things (with certain caveats: it requires more discipline to hit the gym several times a week as opposed to working a job in which you're using your body all day long).
Other than genetics, the only thing that will have any meaningful impact on one's height is childhood nutrition (or lack thereof) - neither of which an adult has any control over as an adult. (For clarity: it's not reasonable to expect a five-year-old to feed themselves, never mind to feed themselves healthily. If they wind up shorter than one would expect based on family history because of poor childhood nutrition, then they're a victim of child abuse.)
It's an old joke/grievance, but short male incels are entirely justified to point out that it's completely unfair that making fun of a man for his height is seen as perfectly fair game, but making fun of a woman for her weight is seen as beyond the pale.
Who says it’s beyond the pale to make fun of fat women? It’s not the politest joke in the world, but neither is the short guy humor.
It's a hard thing to quantify, but I think a talk show host who made a joke at a fat woman's expense would face far greater social disapproval than one who made fun of a short man. I think Graham Norton or Jimmy Fallon could get away with teasing a man for being short (provided he wasn't a literal dwarf) in a way they couldn't if they had Lizzo or Rebel Wilson on as a guest. Nicole Kidman joked that one of the best things about divorcing Tom Cruise was that she could wear heels again, and got a huge laugh. If a male celebrity was married to Lizzo and divorced her, if he made an equivalent joke on a mainstream chat show people would be appalled. The body positivity movement pointedly does not include short men under its remit.
You don’t have to listen to the body positivity movement.
I know I don't, and indeed I don't. My point is that I think it's very telling that the movement exists, is influential, and is by and for overweight women.
I've heard that it was actually by and for men who love overweight women who wanted both to encourage more overweight women and a group where it's easy to meet a lot of overweight women, though I haven't checked deeply for the veracity. Perhaps it's been fully coopted by overweight women by now, though, regardless of the origins.
There's far more overweight women than there are men who like overweight women, by order of magnitude...
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I have hate-followed the HAES/Body Positivity/Intuitive Eating movement for years. It is absolutely for fat women. There are a few fat men in the movement (though they mostly keep quiet because they will quickly be told that they don't suffer as much from society's fatphobia as women do), and there may be a handful of fat-fetishists, but the vast majority are fat women who want to be told that they are sexy and desirable and healthy and don't need to change a thing.
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